Fiz: The Brewery Management Game Review

For a lot of craft beer enthusiasts, the dream of homebrewing a few batches in your garage is easily attainable with some basic equipment, a few books, and a lot of patience. But scaling up your operation into a licensed brewery? That's a lot more involved. Thankfully, Fiz: The Brewery Management Game lets you dive into that fascinating world without the huge financial investment. This unique brewery simulator takes the many complexities that come with running a craft brewing operation and boils them down into a fun, accessible concoction that's authentic and absorbing.

Your quartet of brewing buddies starts its fermenting adventure like many craft beer makers: in the garage, tinkering with low-budget homebrew gear. Making a batch involves picking a recipe, shelling out your budget for ingredients, assigning your crew to different stations according to their skills, and waiting to see how well they perform. That's only the beginning, naturally. Pricing your brews competitively at different markets and catering to patrons' tastes moves product, which in turn gives you the funds to upgrade your gear, try more elaborate recipes, and eventually move your operation into a proper facility.

It's surprisingly less complicated than it first seems, and getting your team into a brewing groove feels incredibly rewarding as you make financial gains. Your crew gets a little better with each run too, and you can boost their stats like in role-playing games to improve both brewing efficiency and the quality of the beers you make.

Light story elements pop up in the form of contests, special events, and text dialogue sequences that place your laborious efforts into greater context within the virtual craft beer world around you. While you can dive in and have fun without an in-depth knowledge of how beer-making works, serious brew heads will really appreciate the level of authenticity here. Whether it's cleaning bottles, mashing, fermenting, or packaging, the steps are all legit. The same goes for the beer recipes and ingredient types. With a ton of recipes to unlock and ample varieties of hops, malt, water, yeast, and adjuncts to tinker with, there's a deep level of craft beer nerdiness to explore here if you feel so inclined.